Patriots Film Review: Gronk returns to his roots

FOXBORO – We’ve seen Rob Gronkowski line up all over the field during his time with the Patriots. Last weekend in Cleveland, he was spread wide on five different occasions.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter where the All-Pro lines up because he’s always tough to cover, but on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, Gronkowski went back to his roots. En route to a seven-reception, 162-yard performance, he didn’t catch one pass while lined up wide.

Gronkowski established a career high for receiving yards, and he did it as a prototypical tight end. He lined up in the natural in-line tight end position for every one of his receptions. On four occasions, Gronkowski was in a three-point stance. On his other three catches, he was standing up right next to the offense line.

For the four receptions he had while in the three-point stance, Gronkowski totaled 88 yards. He had 74 yards and a touchdown for the three catches while standing up on the snap.

It also didn’t matter where Gronkowski’s route led him. He caught three passes on the right side of the field for 80 yards. He had two catches on the left side for 41 yards, and he hauled in two passes over the middle for 41 yards.

Gronkowski’s been dealing with a hamstring injury since August and was still limited in practice last week, but he showed no signs of being limited on Sunday. On his 38-yard reception in the third quarter, Gronkowski gained 20 yards after the catch. Take away the touchdown pass and on his six other receptions he ran for 55 yards after the catch.

The Bengals tried to cover Gronkowski with five different defenders, but it didn’t really matter. Gronkowski had three catches for 54 yards and a touchdown on cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick. He also caught four other passes on four different defenders – linebacker Karlos Dansby (32 yards), free safety George Iloka (9 yards), linebacker Vontaze Burfict (38 yards) and strong safety Shawn Williams (29 yards).

Simply put, Gronkowski was unstoppable.

No flies on Brady

The Patriots offense struggled in the first half and briefly into the third before turning it around on Sunday. The biggest change for Tom Brady and his group was the performance of the offensive line. After a shaky start, the unit pulled together and the Patriots began to take off.

The team’s first drive ended in a field goal, but it was apparent that the offensive line was struggling. Brady was hurried five times on that opening drive. He was hit on third down, which led to the field goal. Every one of Brady’s drop backs on the opening series lasted over two seconds.

To combat the pass rush, the Patriots had Brady utilize short quicker throws on the second drive. Despite releasing the ball in under two seconds on five of six attempts, Brady was still hit twice and the Patriots ended up punting.

On the next three drives, Brady waited over two seconds to throw only twice, but the Patriots got only one touchdown. Of the two throw over two seconds, one was a 39-yard pass to Chris Hogan and the next was a 15-yard touchdown to James White, so it was clear Brady needed a little more time to get the ball down the field.

After punting on their opening drive in the second half, the offensive line didn’t allow another sack or hit. Brady averaged 2.17 seconds from snap to throw and the Patriots exploded for 25 second-half points.

Prior to Gronkowski’s touchdown at 5:00 of the third, Brady was sacked three times and hit four times – Nate Solder (sack), Shaq Mason (sack), James White (sack), David Andrews (two hits), Joe Thuney (hit), and Marcus Cannon (hit).

He was upright after that and the Patriots reaped the benefits.

Playing Eric Rowe pays off

Defensively, the Patriots needed to change things up after struggling in the first half and then again into the third. The biggest thing they did was change their defensive alignment in the secondary.

The Pats opened up the game with three safeties, using Devin McCourty and Duron Harmon deep while putting Patrick Chung in the slot. After a third-quarter touchdown by the Bengals, the Pats inserted Eric Rowe as their nickel cornerback, replacing Harmon, using three corners instead.

After that, the Pats allowed three points for the rest of the game.

Rowe deserves credit for his play on A.J. Green. He finishes the game allowing two catches on three targets for 10 yards (Green caught a 9-yard pass). His biggest play was a pass breakup on Green in the end zone at 12:42 of the fourth quarter.

Malcolm Butler had one of his best games of the season. He allowed three receptions on seven targets for 17 yards. He allowed his first touchdown of the season, to Brandon LaFell, but deflected four passes that came his way.

Logan Ryan gave up three receptions on four targets for 68 yards,

Hightower comes through

You can’t mention the defense without talking about linebacker Dont’a Hightower. He came up with the biggest play of the game with a sack and safety on Dalton at 7:05 of the third quarter.

It took Hightower 2.21 seconds to get to the quarterback and he delayed his blitz. He ran free through the A-gap, untouched, between center Russell Bodine and left guard Clint Boling. Bengals running back Jeremy Hill was in for pass protection, but chose to shoot the B-gap, between the guard and tackle, to help Boling with Malcom Brown.

That choice directly led to Hightower getting a free hit and two points for the Patriots.